Storm Over the Everglades

By Patti Boeckman

Reluctantly, Lindi MacTavish agreed to give up her career in New York to take over her family's small weekly newspaper in Florida. The decision was difficult, and the Clarion's managing editior, the brooding, mysterious Travis Machado, didn't make it any easier. Who was this darkly handsome stranger, as much at home in the wild Everglades as he was in a newspaper office?

Lindi never backed away from a challenge, especially one that excited her mind to solve the enigma of Travis Machado — never suspecting that she would be swept p in a maelstrom of scorching passion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Venture Press
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310260346

Patti Boeckman

Patti Boeckman, author and collaborator with her husband, Charles Boeckman, of 25 Silhouette Romances in the 1980's , (which sold over two million copies worldwide) is known for characters who jump off the page.She is currently editing her husband's manuscripts after his return to writing when he recently made a comeback with anthologies of reprints of some of his pulp stories written in the 1940's and then went on to write contemporary mystery and suspense novels. His latest offering is a romantic suspense, PURSUED!Married for 48 years, the couple has spent their married life working as a team. Their courtship was exactly like a contemporary romance story. Meeting, falling in love, an obstacle to love, the dark moment when all seemed hopeless, and a sudden reversal when she said "Yes." And they have lived happily ever after. Charles always describes their marriage thus: "We're still just as much in love as newlyweds." Patti says that Charles is quite the romantic. Eat your heart out, ladies!

Book preview

Storm Over the Everglades

by Patti Boeckman

Published by Bold Venture Press

www.boldventurepress.com

Audrey Paraente, Editor

Robert Mguire, Cover Illustration

Rich Harvey, Cover Design

Storm Over the Everglades by Author

Copyright 2016 by Patti Boeckman. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published 1984

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the publisher and copyright holder. All persons, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

License Notes

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

About the Author

Other Books by This Author

Connect with Bold Venture Press

Chapter One

I assume you are Miss Lindi MacTavish.

The deep masculine voice almost caused Lindi to spill her coffee. She turned in surprise, shocked to discover that she was impaled by the smoldering, dark-eyed gaze of the man who towered over her.

It was not a friendly gaze. In the confusion of the moment, she was not certain how to describe the man’s expression — dark, brooding … almost angry.

That first encounter with Travis Machado in the crowded Miami airport was one Lindi was destined to remember for the rest of her life.

In the storm of emotions that had torn her life apart in the past twenty-four hours, this strange man represented a fresh onslaught. She stared at him in a confused effort to place him in some logical frame of reference, but he fit none of the familiar stereotypes she could call to mind.

A childhood rhyme flitted through her tumultuous thoughts: doctor, lawyer, Indian chief …

No, he was none of those. But then she had second thoughts. Perhaps in another time, another setting, he might have been an Indian chief. He had the tall, proud, almost haughty bearing; the coal black eyes; the luxurious mane of dark hair; and the swarthy, weather-beaten complexion of a man accustomed to a rugged outdoor existence. The clothes he wore — form-fitting tan jeans with razor-sharp creases, wide belt with a large, ornate silver buckle hugging a trim waist, Western boots, blue sport shirt straining against powerful shoulders — seemed mere concessions to the civilized world. His cheekbones were high, his jaw stubborn and firm. His dark mustache — worn in Burt Reynolds style, heavy and drooping slightly at the corners — added to the slightly malevolent macho image he projected, as did the faint scar along his left jaw line.

Trapped by the power of his glaring stare, Lindi shuddered involuntarily. It was as if the overwhelming events of the past chaotic hours had been leading up to this moment.

A long-distance telephone call to her small East Side New York apartment less than twenty-four hours before had shattered the routine of her life. Engrossed in the page of copy she was editing at her desk, she had picked up the phone and answered absently. Suddenly her attention was riveted.

The voice she heard was that of her brother’s wife, Frances MacTavish. Her sister-in-law was sobbing and barely coherent. Frances, what is it? Lindi asked, her throat constricting.

It’s Roy, Frances choked out. He’s — he’s been in an accident.

For a moment, Lindi’s breathing stopped. Then she swallowed hard and forced herself to draw a long, deep breath. She was familiar with the stories of identical twins who appeared to be in tune with one another though separated by great distances, one sensing, somehow, a climactic occurrence in the life of the other. She had never had that extrasensory rapport with her twin Roy, perhaps because they were fraternal rather than identical twins, but they had always had a close, loving relationship. With their parents and grandparents gone, Roy was her only family. Her heart lurched with fright. Frances, he … he isn’t —

He’s alive, Frances replied brokenly, allaying Lindi’s worst fear. But Lindi, he’s terribly hurt —

Roy’s wife was gaining control of herself and was beginning to speak more coherently. It was a hit-and-run driver. Roy had left the newspaper office and must have been crossing that side street north of the building. One of the men in the office glanced out of the window and saw it happen. The car came speeding around the corner, hit Roy, and just kept right on going. No one was able to get the license number. They called an ambulance and then got hold of me, and I rushed right over to the hospital. Roy is in the intensive care unit. Our doctor has tried to reassure me, but they really don’t know how serious it is yet.

Tears trickled down Lindi’s face. She felt overcome by a wave of grief and impotence. She wanted desperately to reach out to comfort Frances and to be at her twin brother’s side, but more than a thousand miles separated them. Frances, I’ll get the first plane down there.

Oh, Lindi, I hate to disrupt your work this way. But I — I just had to call you …

Well, of course you did! Now, Frances, I don’t know how soon I can get a seat on a plane. This is the tourist season, you know. It may be tonight or the morning before I can get down there. I want you to promise to call me again as soon as you find out any more about Roy’s condition.

Yes, I promise.

Their brief conversation ended. Lindi sat immobilized, staring at the telephone for several long moments, unable to function. A great deal had to be done before she could leave, but she was temporarily numbed by shock.

Then something soft and warm nuzzling her leg aroused her. She looked down at a black-and-white floppy-eared dog of scrambled lineage. Oh, Elmer, she said in a choked voice, reaching down to rub the mutt’s ears. Then she burst into tears. Blindly, she lifted her pet onto her lap. She held the warm body close as the tears ran down her cheeks. Elmer emitted a sympathetic whimper and attempted, dog fashion, to console her with a slurping lick.

Somehow the companionship of the dumb animal comforted her. She squared her shoulders, reached for a facial tissue from a green box almost buried amidst the pile of papers on her desk, and resolutely went about attending to the monumental task of putting her affairs in order.

First things first, she muttered. She saved the copy on the screen of her word processor by transferring it to a floppy disk. Then she switched off the computer. Next she phoned the airport and was told that the earliest possible reservation she could get was on an early flight the next morning. Last, she began listing business matters that had to be resolved.

Five years earlier, after she had received her college degree, she had gone to work for a Madison Avenue public relations firm. Three years later, she had resigned to realize her ambition to be her own boss. Since then she’d had her financial ups and downs as a freelance writer and editor. Between article sales to magazines, editing jobs for book publishers, and speech writing, she managed to pay her half of the rent on a small but comfortable East Side apartment that also served as her office and also eat on a fairly regular basis.

Now she was thankful for the freedom her career gave her to drop everything and fly to her brother’s side.

Of course, it also gives me the freedom to make no money at all, she muttered grimly. But forget that, she had a little money put aside for an emergency, and she’d be able to pick up the loose threads of her business when she returned.

First she broke the news to the congressman whose campaign speech she was working on. He was not overjoyed. Lindi, this is an important speech! I have to have it.

I know, and I’m sorry, Senator. But my brother is in the hospital and I have to fly to Florida. I have the speech two-thirds finished. I can get somebody else to wrap it up. Sid Levine is an excellent writer. He and I often work together on projects like this. I’ll see that he has the polished speech in your hands no later than tomorrow morning.

Well, all right, the congressman grumbled. But it had better be good.

Guaranteed to get you elected, Lindi said aloud, and to herself thought, Unfortunately for the taxpayers.

Next, she called a publisher to say she would not be able to edit the manuscript that had been delivered to her that morning. She got an extension on a deadline for an article she had promised a woman’s magazine and then wrote out checks to cover several pressing bills and put them in envelopes. Then she began packing.

Elmer was underfoot wherever she went, disturbed as his canine intuition kept telling him that dramatic events were about to disrupt the calm routine of his existence.

By then it was evening. A key turning in the lock of the apartment door announced the arrival of Lindi’s roommate, Cimi Layne. The tall young woman paused at the bedroom doorway, staring at the open suitcase and clothes scattered across the bed. What in heaven’s name is going on here?

Lindi sat on the edge of the bed, feeling weak and on the verge of tears again. Cimi, it’s my brother Roy. He’s— he’s been in an accident — She swallowed hard, but the tears started anyway, burning her eyes.

Oh, my God, Cimi gasped. She crossed the room in two long-legged strides, joining Lindi as she sat on the bed. Lindi’s blurring veil of tears created a misty vision of her glamorous roommate. They held hands as Lindi told Cimi about the phone call she’d had earlier that day. Frances, that’s my brother’s wife, said Roy is in the intensive care unit. He was run down by some hit-and-run driver. They don’t know who. They don’t know yet how seriously he’s injured. I’m expecting another call from her to give me some more details. It’s the height of the tourist season so the earliest flight I can get out of here is early tomorrow morning …

Lindi paused, aware that she was running her sentences together in a slightly incoherent manner. I’m sorry, Cimi. I’m not making a whole lot of sense. But I’ve been going in circles all day trying to get everything in order so I can leave.

And probably haven’t eaten a bite all day, Cimi muttered.

I guess not, Lindi admitted, realizing that fact for the first time. Maybe that’s why I feel kind of shaky.

I wouldn’t be surprised. Come on.

Cimi took her hand and led her forcibly into the tiny kitchen, sat her in a chair, and then went about warming a bowl of homemade soup.

Elmer danced around her feet, attempting to call attention to his hunger pangs.

Lindi watched the tall, raven-haired woman move expertly from the stove to the drain board. She often thought that Cimi Layne in action in the kitchen was one of life’s great incongruities. Cimi was the show girl type, long-legged, slim-waisted. She had enormous black eyes in an exquisite, symmetrical face. Her complexion was as smooth as the best porcelain. She could have been stereotyped as a rich man’s plaything, wrapped in mink, stepping out of a Rolls Royce. To see a creature so generously endowed by nature at work in the kitchen was an anomaly that Lindi could never quite reconcile. Cimi was an excellent cook, attended church regularly, didn’t drink or smoke. Somehow, Lindi thought, Cimi’s looks and character didn’t synchronize. Looks like hers should lead to sin. To complete the paradox, for the past year Cimi had been playing the part of a femme fatale in a daily soap opera, a part that suited her looks but was totally at odds with her real character. They often joked about it.

Where does your brother live? Cimi asked, placing the bowl of steaming soup before Lindi.

"In a little town on the west coast of Florida, Palmettoville. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. It’s one of the few isolated places that haven’t been overcrowded and overdeveloped. Roy’s the publisher of a small-town newspaper, The Clarion. Our grandfather started the paper there. Roy inherited it from him."

Don’t just look at the soup. Eat it, Cimi commanded.

Lindi obeyed. It was delicious, as was anything Cimi prepared.

Try a hunk of this homemade bread. You can dunk it in the soup. You look as though you need some nourishment.

Then Cimi poured some dry dog food into a bowl and placed it on the floor. This is for you, my friend, she told Elmer, who emitted a short bark of appreciation and then happily crunched his way through the meal.

The nourishing soup warmed and strengthened Lindi’s drained body. Roy and Frances have six year-old boys, twins. Lindi sighed. How are they going to manage with Roy laid up in the hospital? He just barely makes a living out of that small newspaper.

Well, don’t worry yourself sick over the situation until you get down there. It may not be all that bad. Now, can I help you with your packing?

They were completing the task when the phone rang. It was Lindi’s sister-in-law again. She sounded tired but less frantic now. They’ve moved Roy from the intensive care unit to a private room, so I guess that’s a good sign, at least. They have a special nurse with him tonight. He’s conscious, but he’s groggy from all the pain medicine he’s been getting. The doctors still can’t tell me a whole lot about his condition. It will be tomorrow before they have results from all the tests they’re doing.

I’ll be there in the morning, Lindi promised. The best flight connection I could get is to Miami. I’ll rent a car there.

Oh, I’d hate for you to do that. Maybe I can drive over to get you. What time does your plane land?

At eight tomorrow morning. But Frances, I’m not going to have you drive all that distance to get me. You need to stay with Roy.

"Well, maybe I can get somebody from the newspaper to drive over there

Just don’t worry about it. How are the kids?

All right. They’re staying with friends tonight. We haven’t told them yet how seriously their father is hurt.

They talked a few minutes longer, then ended the conversation.

Cimi made a pot of tea and they sat on Lindi’s bed talking. Sleep seemed out of the question. I have no business keeping you up like this, Lindi told her roommate with a twinge of guilt.

No problem. I don’t have to be at the studio tomorrow until after lunch. I can sleep in. Tell me about your brother. Does he have red hair like you?

Yes. Lindi nodded. And you should see his twin boys; same red hair, same freckles.

Twins and red hair. Sure runs in your family, don’t they?

The MacTavishes had strong genes, I guess. Lindi nodded. "You should have seen our grandfather, Eli MacTavish, the one who started The Clarion. He had a shock of blazing red hair and fierce eyebrows that jutted out over his gold-rimmed glasses. He still spoke with a Scottish brogue, rolling his r’s. It wouldn’t have taken much imagination to visualize him in kilts, blowing his horn across the highlands to assemble his people to battle a feuding clan."

Cimi chuckled at the image. Must have been a rather awe-inspiring gentleman.

I suppose. He was gruff, but I was never afraid of him. Roy and I grew up in Connecticut, you know. It was always the greatest treat of our lives to spend vacation time down in Florida with Grandfather. He treated me like a princess. When Roy and I weren’t playing on the beach, we spent our time hanging around Grandfather’s newspaper office. I can still see him in his ink-smeared apron, ink all over his fingers, mumbling to himself as he puttered around his printing machinery. He was a giant of a man, well over six feet tall. Some of his editorials were as fierce as he looked. They just about had the paper smoking as it rolled off the press. They kept the town pretty well stirred up. Half the town wanted to tar and feather Grandfather; the other half loved him. But he didn’t care whose toes he stepped on. He wasn’t afraid of the Devil himself.

So that’s where your brother got his newspaper fever.

Well, we both did in a way, I suppose. After our parents died, Roy and I stayed in Florida with Grandfather Eli. He saw us through our teenage years and college. When Roy finished college, he went back to help Grandfather run the paper and became the publisher when Grandfather died. My writing career took a different turn, but if it hadn’t been for Grandfather’s influence I guess I might have become a schoolteacher or archaeologist or heaven knows what. Grandfather instilled in me a great respect and fascination for the written word.

The two of them checked the things Lindi had packed, to be certain she wasn’t leaving some vital article behind. Lindi wrote a short list of calls for Cimi to make for her, people she hadn’t been able to reach that afternoon. When Elmer gave her hand a lick, she exclaimed, Good heavens, in all the excitement, I forgot all about you! Cimi, I hate to impose even more on you, but would you mind terribly looking after this mutt until I get back?

Of course not, Cimi said, rubbing Elmer’s black-and-white ears. I consider him one of our roommates anyway. We get along fine, don’t we, old fellow?

Elmer agreed with a slurp oh the back of her hand. Lindi had only a few hours of fitful sleep riddled with bad dreams that night. She was in a cab headed for the airport long before dawn.

The flight was soothing. In the airplane she existed in a controlled environment — soft music, controlled air, controlled lights, pleasant stewardesses. She dozed most of the way, catching up on her sleep.

When she arrived in Miami, she left the plane, walking down the long tube jokingly called the people-eater. Security doors clanged shut behind her as she stepped out into a brightly lighted area. Suddenly she was thrust back into a world of noise and commotion. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the glare. Children were running all over the place. Voices assailed her ears. She heard mostly Spanish. For a moment, she had the unsettling feeling that she had taken the wrong plane and had landed in South America.

She saw that she was in a lounge area with seating on either side. Down the center was a wide corridor, crowded with pedestrian traffic that led to the main terminal. There were giant picture windows through which she could see the planes as they approached the terminal. It was a view of the back-door operation of the airport,